OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)

House of Commons Debates VOLUME 147 NUMBER 121 2nd SESSION 41st PARLIAMENT Thursday, October 2, 2014 Speaker: The Honourable Andrew Scheer HOUSE OF COMMONS CANADA (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) COMMONS DEBATES October 2, 2014 DEBATES Edited Hansard * Table of Contents * Number 121 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 121 (Official Version) Compte rendu officiel * Table des matières * Numéro 121 (Version officielle) 147 121 02 10 2014 2014/10/02 10:05:00 House of Commons Débats de la Chambre des communes House of Commons Debates 41 2

The House met at 10 a.m. Prayers

ROUTINE PROCEEDINGS Routine Proceedings (1005) [ English ] Committees of the House Procedure and House Affairs Mr. Joe Preston (Elgin—Middlesex—London, CPC) : Motion for concurrence Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the following reports from the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs: the 19th report in relation to the question of privilege related to Elections Canada and the member for Selkirk—Interlake , and the 20th report requesting an extension of 30 calendar days to consider matters related to Motion No. 489.

If the House gives its consent, I should like to move concurrence at this time. I would also ask that the 18th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that was presented on Tuesday be concurred in. The Speaker : Is there unanimous consent for the hon. member for Elgin—Middlesex—London to propose this motion? Some hon. members: Agreed. Some hon. members: No.

[ Translation ] Petitions Canada Post Mr. Tyrone Benskin (Jeanne-Le Ber, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am presenting two petitions on behalf of my constituents. Both of them are protesting the changes to Canada Post that will put an end to home mail delivery. The people of my riding are very concerned about this because there are many seniors and people with disabilities. As well, there are not many places to install community mailboxes. That is why I am presenting these two petitions.

[ English ] Impaired Driving Mr. Bev Shipley (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of petitions I would like to present that come from across Canada. The current drinking and driving laws in Canada are a concern, and the petitioners want those changed because when it involves death, it needs to move into the Criminal Code of Canada. The offence would fall under vehicular manslaughter. There are a number of conditions the petitioners have listed, which I will not go through. It would hold people accountable when they are under the influence of drugs or alcohol and kill someone and, in addition, leave the scene. I submit these petitions on behalf of people across Canada.

Rouge National Park Ms. Megan Leslie (Halifax, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, later today we will be debating a bill about Rouge Park, which is very good timing, because I have a petition about Rouge national park. The signatories say that it is commendable that the Government of Canada plans to create Rouge national park and talk about why it is such an important place, but they point out that the bill ignores the ecological vision and policies of approved Rouge Park plans and ignores the ecological integrity of the existing Rouge Park and true Canadian national parks.

They have great concerns with the bill as presented, and the petitioners and I look forward to the minister's response. Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I too have a petition on the Rouge Park from literally hundreds of people who live in and around the Rouge Park. They want a 100-square-kilometre park, a park that strengthens and implements the ecological vision of previous plans, an ecological corridor that would join the park from Lake Ontario up to Oak Ridges Moraine, and an open, public, and transparent planning process.

It is ironic that the bill that is scheduled to be debated today actually achieves none of those things, so I look forward to the minister reconciling the presentation of her bill with this petition. Hon. John Duncan : Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, we are here to deliver petitions, not to make a speech talking about how the petition relates to some piece of legislation that might be before the House. That is absolutely inappropriate. The Speaker : I will take this opportunity to remind members that when they table petitions, they are supposed to provide a very succinct

summary of the petition itself, so we can continue moving on, getting as many in as possible.

[ Translation ] Canada Post Mr. Yvon Godin (Acadie—Bathurst, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, some 100 people from my riding have signed this petition. [ English ] The petition states that between 6,000 and 8,000 Canada Post workers will lose their jobs and that the reduction in service could lead to the privatization of Canada Post, which is an essential public service. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to reject Canada Post's plan for reduced service and to explore other options for updating the crown corporation business plan.

Eating Disorders Ms. Kirsty Duncan (Etobicoke North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present a petition regarding eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia, which are serious mental health illnesses that can be fatal. More than 600,000 Canadians have been affected by eating disorders. The sooner someone receives the treatment he or she needs, the better the chance of a good recovery. However, Canadians suffer long waiting lists for help and limited access to mental health services.

The petitioners call upon the government to work with the provinces, territories, and stakeholders to develop a comprehensive pan-Canadian strategy for eating disorders, including better prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and support.

(1010) Climate Change Ms. Linda Duncan (Edmonton—Strathcona, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I have the privilege today of tabling a petition from Albertans calling on the government to support the climate change accountability act. The petitioners express concern about the inaction by the government on addressing climate change and the cancellation of the eco-energy retrofit program, which could save millions of dollars for homeowners, while the government continues to subsidize the oil and gas industry and not sufficiently supporting public transit.

The petitioners are calling on the government to support the New Democrat climate change accountability act to reduce greenhouse gas and to hold the government accountable.

41st General Election Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present two petitions. The first petition is from residents, primarily of the Vancouver area, who wish to draw the attention of the Government of Canada to the need for a full, independent inquiry into the source of the fraudulent robocalls that occurred in the 2011 election.

Rouge National Park Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from hundreds of residents in the Toronto area and the Scarborough area, dealing with the question of the Rouge Valley national park. The petitioners are calling on the government to ensure that the proposed national park is 100 square kilometres and that it represents and respects the ecological vision of numerous previous studies. The petitioners call for the protection of the 600-metre-wide wooded ecological corridor, as well as numerous other points. I submit this and await the minister's response.

Democratic Reform Mr. Craig Scott (Toronto—Danforth, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I stand with two petitions to present. The first is a petition to stand up for Canadian democracy. Now that Bill C-23 has been passed, the petitioners ask for the government to bring forward genuine electoral reform to stop fraud and prevent money politics from distorting our elections. There are hundreds of signatures on the petition.

Dementia Mr. Craig Scott (Toronto—Danforth, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the second petition is calling on the government to support the bill from my colleague from Nickel Belt , Bill C-356 ,

an act respecting a national strategy for dementia. Mr. Glenn Thibeault (Sudbury, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am very honoured to rise today and present petitions on behalf of citizens from the great city of Sudbury and also from my great riding of Sudbury. The petitioners are calling on the government to look at a national dementia strategy. There are many points that are highlighted in this petition. The petitioners are calling for the Minister of Health and this House to look at passing the private member's bill from my hon. colleague from Nickel Belt , Bill C-356 .

Insect Pollinators Mr. Matthew Kellway (Beaches—East York, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to present a petition today to protect insect pollinators. The signatories to this petition note the increasing mortality rates for bees and other insect pollinators, which has been on the rise for three years. They also note that honey bees alone contribute more than $2.2 billion to Canada's agriculture economy. The petitioners are calling on the House to develop a strategy to address this phenomenon, including encouraging seed companies to produce and facilitate the purchase of seed that is not treated with neonicotinoids.

Questions on the Order Paper Mr. Tom Lukiwski (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I ask that all questions be allowed to stand. The Speaker: Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

GOVERNMENT ORDERS Government Orders [ English ] Combating Counterfeit Products Act The House resumed from September 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-8,

An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts , be read the third time and passed. Bill C-8. Third reading Ms. Chris Charlton (Hamilton Mountain, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-8 , the combating counterfeit products act. What a great

short title for a bill. Who could possibly not be against counterfeit products coming into our country, especially when they may pose serious health and safety risks for Canadians? Certainly New Democrats are against that.

However, despite the fact that the bill tries to frame the debate in the now infamous George Bush way of suggesting “you are either with us, or you're against us”, my NDP colleagues and I take our responsibilities here in the House very seriously, and we proposed a number of amendments that would have vastly improved the bill, so yes, despite supporting the thrust of the bill, we were at times critical of some of its provisions. Let me not get ahead of myself. I will speak to our proposed amendments in due course. First though, let me spend a moment commenting on the bill as a whole.

Bill C-8 would amend both the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act so as to strengthen enforcement of copyright and trademark rights and to curtail commercial activity involving infringing copies or counterfeit trademark goods. To that end, the bill would add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act, for possession and exportation of infringing copies, and create offences for selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale.

It would also create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods and introduce some balance to that prohibition by creating two exceptions: one, for personal use, meaning items in one's possession or baggage; and two, for items that are in transit. On the enforcement side, the bill would grant new ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies or counterfeit goods. This is a significant policy shift. Until now, border officials required private rights holders to obtain a court order before seizing infringing copies or goods.

I will have much more to say about that in a moment, but first let me continue with my quick overview of Bill C-8 . The bill would also grant new ex officio powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detained goods with rights holders. Lastly, it would widen the scope of what can be trademarked to the features found in the broad definition of “sign”, including colour, shapes, scents, taste, et cetera.

There can be no doubt that dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important to both Canadian businesses and consumers, especially as I said before, where counterfeit goods may put the health or safety of Canadians at risk. However the bill is only as good as its enforcement. The strongest laws in the world do not mean a thing if governments are not willing to dedicate the necessary resources to crack down on counterfeit products coming into our country. When I look at the Conservative government's track record in that regard, I fear that we might be creating a paper tiger.

It is very difficult to see how a bill like this would be implemented, when last year alone the Conservatives slashed $143 million in funding to the Canada Border Services Agency, which further reduced front-line officers and harmed the agency's ability to monitor our borders. In fact, CBSA's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss of 549 full-time employees by 2015.

When I asked the minister about that at committee, he said that no new resources would be needed to implement the bill, but that means that border officials and the RCMP would have to reallocate existing resources to enforce this new law and that begs two questions. Which of the functions that they are currently performing to keep Canadians safe are they going to drop to enforce Bill C-8 ; or are they really not going to get serious about combatting counterfeit goods, in which case, why are we passing this bill?

We never did get a satisfactory answer to that question, but it is a point that we will continue to press because it is critical to the successful fight against counterfeiting. I want to move on now to a different issue. Canadians will remember that my NDP colleagues and I have often criticized the Conservative government for failing to take a balanced approach to copyright legislation in the past. The government's record was far from stellar. I do want to give the government some credit where credit is due.

Bill C-8 contains important measures to protect consumer and individual rights, and my NDP colleagues and I worked hard at committee to make sure that these measures were maintained and strong. When dealing with intellectual property, it is imperative that we adopt an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. At first, alarm bells went off when the deputy minister for the Department of Industry said that Bill C-8 would bring Canada in line with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

ACTA contains copyright provisions that have been heavily criticized for failing to achieve this necessary balance. The European parliament rejected ACTA after an unprecedented outcry because its benefits were far outweighed by the threats to civil liberties.

(1015) Those threats included the risk of criminalizing individuals, concerns about the definition of “commercial scale”, the role of Internet service providers, and the possible interruption of the transit of generic medicines. In the end, the European Parliament rejected the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement. I was therefore happy to see that Bill C-8 is much narrower than ACTA and that it contains a number of provisions that offer balance. There are important personal-use exceptions and exceptions for goods that are in transit. Most important, the bill does not address Internet service providers.

Therefore, while my NDP colleagues and I continue to be concerned about the broader provisions in ACTA, we are comfortable supporting Bill C-8 . Ironically, it was the Liberal Party that, at committee, threatened to undermine the important balance that Bill C-8 struck. In fact, it moved two amendments that we worked hard to defeat precisely for that reason. The first Liberal amendment was to remove the personal-use exception for individual travellers, a provision my NDP colleagues and I believe is absolutely crucial to bringing some balance to the bill. As Dr.

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, put it in his blog: Given that personal use exceptions are even included in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, it is shocking to see any party proposing their removal, which would result in longer delays at the border and increased searches of individual travellers...“this was one of the important provisions that brought some balance to the bill.” Professor Jeremy de Beer added that: ...the personal use exception...[is] important...to make the whole system workable, manageable, and cost-effective.

It's not possible to do everything within the resource allocations and the training parameters that our agents are provided with. So the system in the bill as it is creates a very pragmatic, workable starting point, and I would encourage us just to leave it there. Thankfully, the Conservatives agreed with us, and the Liberal amendment was defeated. The same was true of the Liberal amendment to add statutory damages to the bill.

Having already proposed removing the personal exception for travellers and a simplified procedure for the seizure of goods that would remove court oversight in the destruction of goods in a greater number of cases, the Liberals proposed an amendment to add statutory damages, with a mandatory minimum of $1,000 and a maximum of $100,000 in liability. The provision would limit the discretion of judges to order damages based on the evidence. Again, I am going to quote the expert testimony by Dr. Geist at our committee: With respect [to trademarks], statutory damages...are unnecessary.

Rights holders frequently cite the specific value of their goods and the harms associated with counterfeiting. If the claims are accurate, demonstrating the value for the purpose of a damage award should not be difficult. Moreover, other countries have experienced problems with statutory damages for trademarks. For example, Taiwan reformed its trademarks statutory damages provision when courts began awarding disproportionate awards.

In the U.S., statutory damages for trademarks has led to trademark trolls engaging in litigation designed primarily to obtain costly settlements against small businesses that can ill afford to fight in court. Again, my NDP colleagues and I were adamant that this amendment be defeated, because it not only undermined the delicate balance achieved by Bill C-8 but actually went beyond what even ACTA had envisioned. Not all proposed amendments were bad, however, and as I said at the outset, there were sections of the bill that could, and should, have been strengthened.

To that end, I want to spend the remainder of the time available to me here to highlight just a few of the amendments my NDP colleagues and I moved in committee in a sincere effort to improve the bill. The first was one that all parties ended up agreeing to, which was that we needed to return to the original definition of “distinctive” in the Trade-marks Act. I understand that squabbling about

definitions may seem as exciting as watching paint dry, but in this case, it was important that we get it right. As the generic drug industry persuasively argued before our committee, there is significant case law to make it possible for a generic version of a drug to have the same colour, shape, and size as the brand-name drug with the same effect. This is absolutely crucial for the patients who are using those drugs, since any confusion could have deadly consequences.

To throw that case law into doubt by changing the existing definition for no demonstrably important reason made no sense to any of us on the committee. I am pleased to say that the original definition is now restored in Bill C-8 . Sadly, the spirit of co-operation did not extend to other amendments that would have been equally important to ensuring that the intent of the bill was actually reflected in its language. For example, the NDP moved amendments to Bill C-8 that would have ensured that parallel imports would be excluded from the bill's reach.

(1020) Intellectual property lawyer Howard Knopf told us: The bill should propose appropriate declaratory language for both the Copyright Act and Trade-marks Act that makes is [sic] absolutely clear that, with the exception of the sui generis book importation scheme now found in s. 27.1 of the Copyright Act, neither of these acts shall in any way restrict the importation, distribution or sale of any product, whether tangible or digital, that has been manufactured or first put on the market anywhere in the world with authorization.

This is crucial, because parallel importation is an important tool for many businesses for participating in perfectly legal trade, which we would not want to discourage, yet the bill is unclear as to whether trade like this could unintentionally get caught under this bill. We of course continue to expect that important health and safety standards are met by all parallel imports, but at the same time, we want to ensure that small and medium-sized businesses, and in fact businesses of every kind, can continue to engage in parallel importation. We heard from Jeremy de Beer at committee.

He said: ...I've consulted with a number of my expert colleagues, other intellectual property experts—we don't understand how this doesn't apply to parallel imports. If it's inadvertent, then it's an easy fix. If everybody agrees this shouldn't apply to parallel imports, then we just add an exception for parallel imports and the matter's closed. We could not agree more, but unfortunately, the government rejected the amendments that would have added that much-needed clarity to the bill. Our NDP amendments to create a duty to use the measures of the bill in good faith unfortunately met the same end.

The intent of our amendments was to counter vexatious litigation and to prevent a rights holder from using detentions and delays to harm a competitor in cases where there was no legitimate counterfeit infringement concern. This is especially important for small-business owners whose businesses may not be able to survive the costs of malicious or bad-faith claims. Again, this was a concern that was raised in testimony to our committee.

Michael Geist made this clear: ...detention of goods can be used to harm small Canadian businesses that could find the goods they are seeking to import detained, oftentimes by competitors. The absence of a misuse provision in this bill is particularly notable in this regard.

Our amendments should have been seen as friendly. They were in keeping with the spirit of the legislation and simply sought to improve enforcement mechanisms without creating new barriers to competition. Sadly,the government rejected our good-faith efforts to improve the bill. In a similar vein, we tried to amend Bill C-8 to address the costs that may be borne by small businesses for the wrongful and mistaken detention of goods.

As the bill is currently written, it contains a “no liability” provision for the crown and provides for damages against rights holders in cases where court proceedings are dismissed or discontinued. In attempting to strike an appropriate balance between consumer and industry interests, Bill C-8 would place the cost of detaining suspect goods on the rights holder. However, as we heard during testimony at committee, Bill C-8 is clearly lacking misuse provisions to ensure that actors are not engaging in frivolous claims as a means of acting anti-competitively.

As a result, our amendments sought to provide the courts with the clear authority to provide for damages where any court action is determined to be frivolous, vexatious, or made in bad faith. Without creating a new barrier for rights holders to protect their copyright or trademark, this amendment would create a safeguard to ensure the integrity of the system and would protect small businesses from the possibility of a company abusing the provisions of Bill C-8 for anti-competitive purposes rather than for protecting their legitimate intellectual property.

Although we again believed that these amendments would be deemed to be friendly by the government, we were mistaken. These two were defeated, and in our view, it was an important missed opportunity to make the bill stronger. The last NDP amendment I want to highlight here was our effort to create a tool for assessing whether the bill would actually be effective in combatting counterfeit products, as the bill's title would have us believe it would be.

When my NDP colleagues and I asked in committee whether it was possible to ascertain the extent of the problem of counterfeit goods coming into our country, the answer was a resounding no. At best, we know the value of the seizures that were made. As the RCMP told us, the retail value of counterfeit goods they seized increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012. However, that does not account for any of the goods that were not detected as they crossed our borders.

That is a significant concern, especially since, as I said earlier, the government has cut the ability of Canada Border Services to do its job by slashing the agency's budget by $143 million. That cut has seriously harmed our ability to monitor our borders. We know that the problem is bigger than the numbers reflected in the RCMP's seizure stats, but accurately measuring the scale of counterfeit copies and goods in Canada remains difficult. This is owing to the clandestine nature of counterfeiting.

In addition to the actual seizures, much of the data are estimates based on anecdotal information or are from industry itself, in which case, the collection methods may be unavailable to assess.

(1025) What we do know is that counterfeit products can pose risks to the health and safety of consumers, whether we are talking about counterfeit electrical components, faulty brake pads, or unsanitary stuffing in goose down jackets. According to the Chamber of Commerce's Canadian Intellectual Property Council, counterfeit batteries have exploded in the desks of police who have stored them, and the acid leaking from counterfeit batteries has caused burns to at least eight Canadian children. It is precisely for those types of safety reasons that it is essential that we know the scope of the problem.

How else can we know whether we are assigning the appropriate resources to dealing with the problem of counterfeiting? When I raised this issue with the Minister of Industry in committee, he acknowledged that there are no more accurate estimates out there. When we asked the RCMP whether it had numbers, just with respect to the number of Canadian manufacturers who have been convicted of importing or exporting counterfeit goods, we were told that it had no figures for that either.

Therefore, it seemed to us that the bill could create an important opportunity to require accurate information to be both collected and reported so that Parliament, and more importantly Canadians, would have a better way of evaluating whether we were being successful in addressing the concerns at the heart of this bill. In fact, we were simply echoing the recommendation of the industry committee in 2007, which called on the government to establish a reporting system that would track investigations, charges, and seizures for infringing copies and counterfeit goods as a means of collecting some data.

Our proposed amendment had the support of the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters. Joy Nott, the president and CEO of the organization, responded to a question from me by saying: Do I support the monitoring of this sort of thing? Absolutely I do. I think that's a great idea because, from a business perspective, business lives on metrics and on data. This is how they help to make decisions.

Right now when it comes to copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and the ability to import into Canada, it's a little bit like the wild west in that there's nothing that stops these shipments at the border currently unless the owner of the trademark takes specific, very onerous action through Canadian federal courts to register something. Since there seemed to be agreement that a reporting requirement would be an important improvement to Bill C-8 , we moved an amendment to require an annual report to Parliament with information on detainments made under the bill.

We had hoped for information on the number of detainments, the number of requests for assistance under both the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act, and the number of inspections conducted. Sadly, the government members voted to defeat this amendment, and once again confirmed for me that this government has complete disdain for evidence-based decision making. Despite the fact that our amendments were defeated, we continue to be supportive of the bill as a whole. In this case, at least it is a start. Dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important for both Canadian businesses and consumers.

Members can rest assured that with or without a report back to Parliament, we will not stop holding the government to account on this important file. Without adequate resources for enforcement, C-8 will prove to be a paper tiger. That cannot be allowed to happen, especially when the health and safety of Canadians may very well be at risk.

(1030) Mr. Tyrone Benskin (Jeanne-Le Ber, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her very in-depth speech. It seems to me that we are flying blind on this. My colleague mentioned the fact that there have been a certain number of seizures. However, is there any evidence as to what percentage of the total counterfeiting issue these seizures represent? Is it 10%, 50%, or 30%? I would like to ask my hon. colleague that question. Ms. Chris Charlton : Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question.

The statistic we have is that a quarter of RCMP investigations and seizures of counterfeit products were potentially harmful to consumers in 2011, and that proportion has gone up from 11% in 2005. Both of those were a response to an order paper question that my colleague from Sudbury placed on the order paper. That was the only way we were getting the information from the government. The question we still have, as I indicated in my speech, is this: when is the government going to focus its efforts, in the area of counterfeiting, on the health, safety, and security of consumers? Mr.

Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest. We saw the main problem with ACTA, and certainly the backlash in Europe. It was the attempt to blur the line between criminal counterfeiting, which we need to go after, and going after individuals who may infringe copyright but are certainly not criminal actors. I would like to ask my hon. colleague about the Liberals' attempt to amend the law so that they could stop people travelling internationally and go after them for personal use.

This seems to be way beyond what ACTA envisioned and way beyond what anyone else has brought forward. With statutory damages of $100,000 and limiting judges, it seems to me that we are talking about criminalizing a whole class of consumers as opposed to focusing on the real criminal element. I would like to ask my colleague why she thinks the Liberals came forward with such an extreme position.

(1035) Ms. Chris Charlton : Mr. Speaker, trying to get into the heads of my Liberal colleagues is a very daunting proposition. I am not really prepared to do that. I do know that when we were at committee my colleagues on our side of the committee room were quite surprised at the Liberals' approach. Every bit of expert testimony we had suggested that their proposed amendment would be a huge infringement on civil liberties. We found ourselves in the very strange position as New Democrats of voting with the Conservatives in maintaining the balance.

It is indeed a very crucial balance that we tried to achieve in the bill between consumer rights and still being able to go after counterfeit goods. I very much appreciate the question. I do not have an answer. I have no idea why the Liberals wanted to infringe civil liberties through the implementation of Bill C-8 . It certainly made no sense to us. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I want to emphasize one of the things the Liberal Party has spoken at great lengths about.

That is the importance of ensuring the safety and health of our children, in particular, as well as seniors and others. There are many benefits within the legislation that would in fact enable safer importation of pharmaceutical medications, for example. There are many fraudulent games and toys that are brought into the country that have all sorts of potential chemicals put into the paints, and so forth, which are all quite dangerous to our population, our children in particular.

I wonder if the member might want to provide some comment, if the NDP were successful at bringing any amendments, to deal with those two specific issues, pharmaceuticals and children's toys. I use those as examples. Ms. Chris Charlton : Mr. Speaker, indeed we were.

As I suggested during my speech, particularly with respect to the definition of “distinctive”, as it was rewritten in the bill, it was imperative that we return to the original so that it would be possible for people to have confidence in generic drugs and that we were not inadvertently affecting people's health and safety by making a change in the bill for which there was no demonstrable reason. One of the things that was really fascinating to me during the committee's deliberations on the bill was the magnitude of counterfeit goods that have been coming into the country.

We learned, for example, that many of the counterfeit Canada Goose goose-down jackets have chicken feces and chicken beaks instead of just down in the coats. We heard of batteries exploding and the deaths of police officers. I did not know that when one buys a Team Canada hockey jersey, the way to know whether it is a fake or it is real is to check to see if it was made in Canada. If the jersey was made in Canada, it is actually a fake.

There are all kinds of consumer issues that we need to address in a very serious way, and frankly, we need to do much more consumer education as well so that we can detect, as consumers, which goods are officially licensed and which ones are counterfeit. [ Translation ] Mr. Alain Giguère (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my distinguished colleague for having so ably defended Bill C-8 . Clearly, the NDP always sides with Canadian consumers. The best example of that is when it comes to medication. The government waited three years to take medication with major defects off the market.

That is a mistake that an honest and experienced leader, such as the Leader of the Opposition , would never have made. He would not have waited three years, I can tell you that. Like all our policies, Bill C-8 is very much in line with our support for the minimum wage, our insistence that the health care cuts be reversed and our call for an inquiry into missing aboriginal women. In other words, with Bill C-8 , is the NDP not demonstrating that it wants the government to work for Canadians, first and foremost? [ English ] Ms. Chris Charlton : Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for the question.

On raising the integrity of medicines and the health and safety of Canadians with respect to the medications that they take, he is, of course, spot on. I think the member was referring to matters that we raised in question period here on this side of the House with respect to Apotex and the fact that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health effectively said that they raised the issue of unsafe drugs with the company but the company refused to act, as if that somehow were good enough for Canadians. Clearly, it was not. Now, in Bill C-8 , we have that issue before us again.

We moved amendments in committee to make sure, as I said, that consumers would still be able to take generic drugs with the confidence that they were taking the right medication. We are now able to have generic drugs with the same shape, colour and size as the original medications precisely so that consumers can have confidence in the system. That is absolutely imperative. The other question we have to ask ourselves is this.

If we are creating this framework to keep Canadians safe, why are we cutting the resources for both the RCMP and Canadian border officials, which would make it impossible to enforce that regime? Those resources have been cut dramatically. Over 500 full-time jobs will be gone. How can Canadians have confidence that, even with this new regime, the necessary enforcement will be there to keep them and their families safe?

(1040) The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Before we resume debate, I would inform the House that we are now almost to the five-hour point in the debate, so this will be the last 20-minute speaking slot. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Surrey North. Mr. Jasbir Sandhu (Surrey North, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the member for Hamilton Mountain made a very passionate and eloquent speech on this particular bill, and I would like to thank her for providing that very useful information to the House.

I rise today on behalf of my constituents in Surrey North to speak to Bill C-8 , the combating counterfeit products act. The title of the bill requires that we all agree to issues like this in the House. It is very rare that all parties agree on certain issues in the House and move forward an agenda that is in the best interests of Canadians. It is a pleasure to speak to the bill today to support a piece of legislation on which all parties are in general agreement. Often in the House, it seems impossible to move forward and create meaningful legislation that all parties can agree on.

Of course, no piece of legislation will ever be perfect to every party, but when we have the opportunity to advance the legislative agenda in this country and create legislation surrounding important issues, I gladly welcome the progress. As members of the official opposition, it is our duty to ensure that legislation is carefully considered and questioned, and that dissenting opinions are publicly expressed and debated. However, as embodied by our late leader, Jack Layton, there is also great value in working together. I believe that the bill will be a step forward for all Canadians.

Issues surrounding counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringement, and intellectual property are, without a doubt, complex matters that may seem far removed from the lives of normal Canadians. However, in reality, these issues have a direct impact on all Canadians, especially with regard to their health and safety. I truly believe that as elected officials, we should work to make this country as safe as possible for all citizens. Counterfeit goods have the potential to put the health and safety of Canadians at risk, and as such, it is time that we strengthened our laws against counterfeit goods.

Dealing with counterfeiting and infringement is important in protecting Canadian consumers who may unsuspectingly purchase counterfeit goods that could put their health and safety at risk. As the member for Hamilton Mountain pointed out, there is a lack of awareness with regard to counterfeit goods across the country, with many consumers not knowing whether a particular product is counterfeit or not. Certainly, more education and information for consumers would be another step that we could take to inform consumers, but that is another issue.

The talk of counterfeit products intuitively brings to mind images of the knock-off designer handbags, sunglasses and watches that we frequently see. I am sure that it is hard to imagine how these products might pose a risk to the health and safety of Canadians. These types of products breed different problems in that they undermine the value of the original product and capitalize on the creativity of another company by infringing on its intellectual property.

By dealing with counterfeiting and infringement, as we are attempting to do with the bill, we will hopefully also cut down on counterfeit products of this nature, which are serious infringements on rights holders. What concerns me most are the products that pose a health and safety risk to Canadians. While researching the bill, I read about counterfeit batteries that exploded in the desks of police officers who had stored them there. I also learned that acid leaking from counterfeit batteries has caused burns to at least eight Canadian children. I am a parent myself.

My young son is eight years old and he has a number of electronic gadgets that he plays with. It is not just my son who plays with these toys, as his friends from around the neighbourhood play with them, too. The batteries often run out and he comes to me or his mom and asks for new batteries for those gadgets. It scares me to think there are counterfeit batteries out there that my son or another child could be exposed to, which could be hazardous to their health. As a parent, I am concerned. We need to take steps to ensure that these counterfeit products are not on the market.

(1045) It is terrifying to hear that these types of goods are in our society and our kids could be using them. It scares me to think that Canadians have to fear that the batteries their children use in their remotes for their video games or TVs might injure them. This is merely one example of an ordinary household product that we unassumingly utilize in our everyday lives. We hardly expect something like this to harm us. I will give the House one more example of counterfeiting that poses a serious health and safety risk.

Just a few days ago a man from Surrey was sentenced to six months in prison in the United States for selling counterfeit vehicle airbags. All Canadians would be seriously concerned if they found they had counterfeit airbags in their cars that might not deploy properly. This is a safety device that we often take for granted. On the rare occasion that they would be used, we assume they would protect us. The consequences of counterfeit products like this not working are serious. Serious injury or even death could result. This is a prime example of a safety risk stemming from a counterfeit product.

We need to protect all Canadians from this type of counterfeiting. The technical details of Bill C-8 would add two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act: the possession of and the exportation of infringing copies and selling or offering counterfeit goods on a commercial scale. The bill proposes to create a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods and introduces a balance to the prohibition by creating two exemptions: for personal use and for items in transit control. I will speak to that aspect of the bill later in my speech.

Bill C-8 would also grant ex officio powers to border officials to detain infringing copies of counterfeit goods. This is a significant policy shift as until now border guards required the private rights holder to obtain a court order before seizing infringing copies of goods. This policy change would grant much greater power to front-line officers to prevent counterfeit goods from entering the country. Additionally, Bill C-8 would grant new ex officio powers to the Minister of Public Safety and border officials to share information on detailed goods with the rights holder.

I have another serious concern with Bill C-8 in regard to how the provisions of this legislation would be implemented. Over the last four years, I have seen the government bring in legislation which could basically be considered a paper tiger. Legislation needs to have teeth. There also has to be the necessary resources to implement legislation that the government brings into the House. That is the case with this legislation as well.

This legislation would help Canadians look after their health, but no resources have been allocated as to how the legislation would be implemented or how CBSA would implement some of the provisions in the bill. It is extremely unclear how CBSA would implement enforcement measures introduced in Bill C-8 in the face of the cuts from budget 2008.

(1050) Budget 2012 slashed $143 million in funding to CBSA, which in turn reduced front-line officers and weakened our ability to monitor our borders. The New Democrats understand that CBSA needs to be adequately resourced in order to carry out this new work that we expect from it in a manner that does not take away from the other very important work it already performs. This $143 million in cuts to CBSA over three years will equate to a loss of 549 full-time equivalents between now and 2015, according to this year's CBSA Report on Plans and Priorities.

The changes proposed by Bill C-8 will require that CBSA dedicate additional resources to areas such as intelligence analysis, port of entry examination and officer training. However, to accomplish the goals set out in the bill without additional funds, CBSA will have to re-allocate internal sources. This puts at risk many of the other extremely important work that CBSA perform. If we look at some of the other bills the government brought in, on one hand, it brings in some legislation that will be tough on crime.

On the other hand, it cuts funding to preventive programs that require either monitoring of individuals or reintegration of some of the people who will be out of jail. The government is creating these paper tigers, while at the same time it is not only cutting the very people who will be enforcing the legislation, but it is also cutting some of the remedial funding that is needed to ensure these kinds of laws and regulations actually work in real life.

It is very discouraging that we are trying to protect the health of safety of Canadians, of balancing that with the copyrights, while at the same time cutting the funding for the very officers who would be monitoring all of this. That is very troubling. The men and women of the Canada Border Service Agency have the extremely important job of defending our borders in every respect, and they put their lives on the line every day to ensure our borders and our citizens are safe.

The New Democrats believe that CBSA needs to be adequately funded in order to carry out the provisions of the bill effectively so it can continue to do its job without compromising its other important responsibilities in protecting our borders and our citizens. I hope the government will take steps to ensure CBSA has the resources needed to perform the duties that are being asked of it under Bill C-8 . As I mentioned earlier, I want to speak to the exceptions that are included in the bill, including the exception for personal use and for items in transit control.

The personal use exemption means that border officials would not be permitted to seize copies that would be in one's possession or baggage. The provision for items in transit is also important in providing balance in the bill for items that may be destined for a location to which they are being imported lawfully. These are important exemptions to ensure that on the whole, this system is workable and cost effective. As I mentioned earlier, budgetary restrictions on border officers already pose challenges to the implementation of the bill.

These exemptions would ensure that Bill C-8 would not create longer border delays, increased searches of individual travellers as well as put an additional burden on CBSA officers.

(1055) I come from Surrey, which is only a 10 or 15-minute ride from the border, and I have already seen long lineups at the border going both ways. In the Lower Mainland of B.C., a lot of the jobs are created by tourism. As we know, one of the best places to live is British Columbia, in Surrey, Vancouver and greater Vancouver. There are a lot of visitors from the states and, likewise, Canadians go south of the border. Many times I have seen hours and hours of long lineups either to get into the United States or to come to Canada. There should not be cuts to the very people who look after our borders.

The cuts to CBSA over the last number of years, and cuts that will happen in the next few years, have put extra burden on these individuals. I hope the government takes into consideration that cutting the very people who are patrolling our borders, CBSA officers and RCMP, is going to have an impact not only on the movement of people from one side to the other, but also goods, which would hurt the economy in which we operate. It also hurts jobs.

Cutting the funding for these border services officers will impact not only how we implement this bill, but will have an impact on the movement of goods and services across the border. The New Democrats believe that intellectual property requires an approach that strikes a balance between the interests of rights holders and the interests of users and consumers. These exceptions are important provisions that work to maintain this delicate balance. I am glad to see the Conservative government put forward legislation that essentially all parties can agree on.

That is an important step in protecting both businesses and consumers in Canada. Although I am not hopeful, I hope the government will take my comments about the need for more resources to be allocated to CBSA under advisement and work to ensure the bill is implemented effectively. The member for Hamilton Mountain talked about the New Democrats introducing amendments that would improve the bill.

I have seen in other committees where the government brings in legislation, many experts testify before committee and offer very thoughtful suggestions that could improve bills further to ensure they are workable, in the best interests of Canadians and close any sort of loopholes. As usual, time after time, whether it is this bill or other bills, the government has failed to take those suggestions into consideration.

Surely, after many thousands of suggestions, whether by the official opposition, the New Democrats, or experts from many different organizations across the country, the government would consider some of those suggestions to improve bills. Time after time, it has not accepted amendments offered by us. I hope the governing party takes my advice with regard to providing more resources and implementing Bill C-8 .

(1100) Mr. Adam Vaughan (Trinity—Spadina, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, the opposition party mused about a Liberal position around trying to assume some individual responsibility in this situation. I would like to ask the member this question. Does he not think that curbing demand by individuals is also a way of managing this issue? In particular, in the riding I represent, many artists, musicians and writers suffer from copyright infringement and the transmission of that copyright across borders.

Does he not think that taking steps to somehow curb the market and the demand may also be a way of protecting income and copyrights for individual artists who are suffering because it is only a systemic approach, a corporate approach, to managing this situation? Mr. Jasbir Sandhu : Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for that excellent question, and I actually agree with him in regard to the Liberal position. I am actually puzzled by a lot of the positions they take on a number of issues. I have seen this on the issue of Iraq.

The leader of the Liberal Party has a statement one day and another statement on a different day. One day he is supporting the mission, which— The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : The hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is rising on a point of order. Ms. Elizabeth May : Mr. Speaker, with all due respect to my hon. friend from Surrey North , we have limited time to debate Bill C-8 in this place, and his response has gone slightly off topic unless there are Iraqi goods to which counterfeiting measures would apply. The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : The member raises the point of relevance.

As all members know, members are given some latitude, and certainly making a short reference to another issue is acceptable. I am quite confident that the member for Surrey North will keep remarks relevant in general to the question. Mr. Jasbir Sandhu : Mr. Speaker, I only brought up that issue because the member asked about the Liberal Party. To answer his question, any time an issue or bill that concerns health and safety risks to Canadians is brought to the House, we will certainly support those kinds of initiatives, whether they are by the government or by the opposition.

That is why we are here: to act in the best interests of all Canadians. [ Translation ] Mr. Alain Giguère (Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, the NDP will support Bill C-8 . Of course we will, because this bill will protect Canadians. We are in favour of that, just as we are in favour of daycare and minimum wage. Voting for a good law is fine, but making sure it gets implemented is essential. This is becoming quite scandalous; an experienced leader like the Leader of the Opposition would never have done such a thing.

In this particular case, what can we expect from the legislation when the people responsible for enforcing it have had some 500 positions cut? What can we expect from a bill that does not apply to generic prescription drugs? There are criteria governing the quality of patented drugs, but the government takes no responsibility for generic drugs. That is the problem. I would like an answer about that. (1105) [ English ] Mr. Jasbir Sandhu : Mr.

Speaker, we have repeatedly seen legislation in this House, whether it is first nations legislation or other, that creates paper tigers but does not allocate funding to implement some of the provisions in those bills or some of the regulations that are going to be created. The result is that the responsibility to implement those measures is downloaded to the provinces, and I have seen the impact it has on them. If we are creating these laws and regulations, there have to be resources behind them.

As I indicated earlier, there have been cuts to the funding for CBSA officers to the tune of about $143 million over three years. That is equivalent to about 549 full-time jobs. If we are going to be creating these laws and regulations to protect Canadians, whether for health or safety reasons, then we owe it to Canadians to ensure that adequate funding and resources are available. I do not see that from the government, either with this legislation or with other legislation that has been brought in. It has failed to provide the resources. Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP) : Mr.

Speaker, I listened with great interest, and I was rather shocked to see the Liberal position on this issue. They would go further than the Conservatives, further than the secretive agreement did, because of their desire to go after individual consumers, and this after 35,000 lawsuits against kids, mothers, and even dead people in the U.S. over downloading a song or two. My colleague from Trinity—Spadina seems to believe that what the Liberals attempted to do is a good economic driver.

They wanted to make it possible to stop people at airports, check out what they have on their iPods, find out if it was actually downloaded it from iTunes or if their kid sent it to them, and then be able to pull them out of line and charge them. Everyone recognizes that it would be an outrageous infringement of individual rights to no purpose. It would allow criminal counterfeiting gangs to carry on, but individuals would targeted.

I would like to ask my hon. colleague why the Liberal Party is so out of touch with what it means to support artists in this country and to support the right of individual consumers to travel across international borders without being stopped and harassed. Mr. Jasbir Sandhu : Mr. Speaker, I am actually very puzzled by the position of the Liberals on this particular bill and the kinds of amendments they wanted to bring in. I am puzzled, but I am not surprised.

The Liberals had the opportunity to bring in measures for these sorts of issues on health and safety risks and infringements on the Copyright Act when they were in government. However, they did not bring them in back then, and I do not expect them to provide any insightful amendments for the bill before us. The member for Timmins—James Bay is absolutely correct when he talks about how Liberals have failed to protect artists in our community and the very culture that artists create in this country. Again, I am very puzzled as to how the Liberals responded to this particular issue.

It is truly amazing. [ Translation ] Ms. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet (Hochelaga, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned examples of dangerous counterfeit goods, such as the acid in batteries that go in children's toys and airbags that do not deploy. That is dangerous. He believes that this is a very important bill; he said so himself. I would like him to tell us more about how the importation of those kinds of counterfeit goods into Canada affects the health and safety of Canadians, particularly given the budget cuts at the Canada Border Services Agency. [ English ] Mr. Jasbir Sandhu : Mr.

Speaker, as a parent I am very concerned about some of these counterfeit items. I talked about batteries exploding, and a number of Canadians have died from these sorts of products. As a father of two children, I am very concerned, especially about batteries and such, because my son uses batteries in a number of different gadgets that he has. The other case I pointed out was on the airbags that were being sold into the United States by an individual from my city. He has been jailed for six months in the United States. This is a very recent case.

One would think that airbags would deploy and work properly when they are needed. These are very serious health and safety issues for all Canadians. To detect these products and ensure that they do not come into the market, we need CBSA officers to inspect the goods that are coming in, so making cuts to the numbers of those officers is not going to help. I encourage the government to provide the resources so that we can properly implement Bill C-8 .

(1110) Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, it is a great honour to rise in the House and speak to Bill C-8 on counterfeiting measures. I have spoken many times over the last 10 years on these issues. In terms of legislative issues, often the issues regarding copyright, counterfeit, and trademark have been blurred, and there is a need to come up with coherent policies that protect citizens and rights holders. This is not an easy situation, because we are in a market that has transformed itself incredibly since Lord Macaulay , in 1841, talked about the need to protect the writers of the time.

He said we have to stop “the knaves who take the bread out of the mouths of deserving men”. Lord Macaulay believed there needed to be copyright provisions, but he also said there had to be a balance, that it was not about creating a monopoly for a certain group of book holders in London to stop upstarts who wanted to come in. We know the story of the reason Hollywood exists. It is because California at that time was beyond the copyright laws of the Thomas Edison corporation. They moved out to the desert, not because it was beautiful but because they were the original pirate culture.

They set themselves up and created an industry. The issue of these balances throughout history is a difficult act. We have seen WIPO and ACTA, the secretive anti-counterfeiting trade agreement that received great international backlash from ordinary citizens because it was blurring the roles between domestic copyright policies, citizens' rights policies, and the issue of counterfeit. Where this comes in is that we need to ensure that we can protect our rights holders and citizens from the counterfeit goods and bootleg operations that are undermining our economy.

We need to ensure that we have the tools to go up against them. When we see large corporate rights holders say they want to spread that across the board, we end up with an overreach, as with my colleagues in the Liberal Party saying we should go after individuals when a kid downloads a song and sends it to three friends. The United States attempted, through its Digital Millennium Copyright Act of the 1990s, to create a legalistic response to the issues the digital culture was creating. After 35,000 lawsuits against citizens, the market did not come back.

What was missing from the market at that time was a coherent plan for the remuneration of artists, who were facing some very difficult and challenging conditions because of the ease of copying. It used to be the only people who could actually copy were the ones who had the means of production, the bookbinders and record companies, but suddenly ordinary citizens could make copies, so the right to make copies became very challenged. Canada had come up with one of the those solutions, which was the private copying levy.

We recognized in Canada that people were going to make all manner of copies and that it would be impossible to remunerate artists for all the copying going on, so for every cassette that was produced, a few pennies were put aside into a fund for artists. The decision by the Conservative government to kill the private copying levy has cost the Canadian music industry $25 million a year. Given the conditions of the music industry in Canada, that is $25 million we cannot afford to lose.

Under the latest copyright act, the government killed the mechanical royalties for musicians and for the record industry, which is millions more. At a time when the artistic culture of our country is suffering very much, the need to remunerate those artists has been steadily whacked away. There is the issue of collective copying regimes in schools. It certainly needs to be updated because of the digital culture, but to simply undermine it would leave artists working for free and would make the intellectual and artistic development of our country much more challenged.

The other issue we are seeing now is the copyright board's rules on live streaming. In the United States, it is an abysmal situation. As an example, Lady Gaga was paid $162 in royalties for over a million plays. I think that was through Spotify, the streaming service.

(1115) For someone of the magnitude of Lady Gaga to receive a $162 cheque shows you just how impossible it is for any other mid-size artist to make a living and run a business doing the kind of music that is Canada's premier export. We can talk about our oil and gas and mining, but the talent that has come out of Canada in terms of music, our artists, playwrights, internationally, this is an industry that we cannot afford to undermine anymore. In the United States the streaming royalties set by its copyright tariffs are so low that it is undermining the ability of any artist to survive.

The Copyright Board of Canada has set it at 10% of the American rate. Therefore, they are living as paupers in the United States with what their copyright board has set for this new medium and in Canada it is only 10% of what the rate is in the United States. We would assume then if Lady Gaga had one million plays in Canada, she would get $16.50, which would make anyone decide to go and work at Tim Hortons rather than be an artist in this country. Those are the issues we are facing in terms of the need to protect our artists. How do we protect our artists? We do not criminalize the consumer.

We create a monetary stream. That is a reasonable solution. In terms of counterfeiting we have to separate the issues around protecting our artists and giving them the tools they need to be able to prosper, from the issues around being able to go after the counterfeit gangs. I will stay on the artists' situation for one more minute. Where we have small businesses or small creative artists, if their trademarks or arts are taken by some counterfeit gang in China and reproduced, they have no mechanisms to go after them. Individual and small rights holders have no ability to go after these counterfeit operations.

Sony and Warner Bros. can, but the individual creative rights holders who has their work stolen has no ability. If we are looking at international trade agreements, how do we provide provisions so that the small creative artists who are having their works stolen can respond? The bill is really an attempt to bring Canada in line with what came out of the ACTA negotiations, which were secretive. It was an overreach. It was a process too beset by lobbyists to be credible and when it came to the public, there was a huge backlash. It was interesting to see that the backlash was in Europe.

Therefore, we see some of these provisions have been modified somewhat. Now the border guards are able to seize counterfeit goods at the border. That is a good provision because rights holders actually had to go to court and get a court order before, so it was very difficult. Giving border guards the ability to seize goods at the border is a reasonable solution to dealing with criminal counterfeiters. Counterfeit operations undermine our economy and they also undermine basic health and security in this country.

Again, I want to point out that our Liberal colleagues wanted to extend this to be able to go after individuals who are travelling, which would have made it the ultimate harassment tool for anyone travelling anywhere internationally. You could be pulled out of a line and told that officials wanted to look at your iPod and go through every one of your songs. My kids send me songs that they have downloaded, maybe from iTunes, but I would be liable for that.

That would be an overreach, so the Liberal position of going after individuals and criminalizing individuals when the focus of our border guards should be going after the criminal gangs is very wrong-headed and out of step with pretty much the rest of the world, although maybe North Korea might side with them on that one. If we are going to have counterfeit laws we need the resources so that border guards can go after counterfeiters. We have seen massive cuts in border services.

We also need resources for the police because they still do not often see that this is an issue, going after the knock-off goods, going after the bootlegged DVDs. Perhaps we need to look at provisions that provide our police services with the incentive to clean up some of the illegal trades in goods that have undermined our economy and undermined safety for Canadians.

(1120) The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Before I go to questions and comments, I would just remind hon. members to address their questions and comments to the Chair. A couple of times this morning in the questions, members used the structure of “Mr. Speaker, through you to the member, why did you do this or why did you say that?” Members cannot do indirectly what they cannot do directly. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Jeanne-Le Ber. Mr. Tyrone Benskin (Jeanne-Le Ber, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Timmins—James Bay for his very eloquent understanding of the situation.

We did work together on the committee for Bill C-11 to reform copyright. I would ask the member if he could comment further on these issues. He was speaking about the issues regarding artists and the limitations now placed on the remuneration for artists because of the changes to the mechanical rights regime, the copyright regime and the private copying regime. He spoke about how that differs, for example, from the more tangible counterfeiting of DVDs, Prada bags, or things that can be seized at the border.

Could the member comment a little bit about how he sees it being more difficult, if he does, in finding remuneration for artists under this copyright regime, as opposed to simply seizing goods at the border? Mr. Charlie Angus : Mr. Speaker, in 1928, the recording industry in the United States collapsed. It was the biggest single loss in the history of the recording industry. It happened because the radio came in. Why buy records when people could listen to the radio? The industry was in deep crisis until it found a solution where it forced the radio stations to pay a share.

Part of the reason that people were listening to the radio was because they were listening to music. That remuneration stream then brought in an unprecedented artistic development of artists across North America and Europe because they were able to be paid. What we are seeing now in this changing culture is that artists have incredible new opportunities for getting their product out there, but they do not have any way to get paid. It is decimating our artists at a time when they have incredible international opportunities. The issue is needing a balance.

We have to find a remuneration monetization stream for our artists, but our legal issues need to be focused on going after the counterfeiters and bootleggers who are undermining the overall economy with commercial operations that use products and sell them, making money off of the backs of other people's work. [ Translation ] Ms. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet (Hochelaga, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, my colleague is clearly very knowledgeable about the subject.

That is why I would like him to contrast the New Democrats' approach to the Liberals' and Conservatives', especially with respect to striking a balance between the rights of consumers and those of artists. [ English ] Mr. Charlie Angus : Mr. Speaker, when my colleagues and I were working on the Copyright Act, one of the issues was that the only thing brought forward by the Conservatives was digital locks. Digital locks will not create a market. Digital locks will not stop theft. Any kid who wakes up in the morning probably breaks three digital locks.

What we said was, rather than simply saying that we would put in all kinds of legal provisions for digital locks, let us find a monetization formula. It does exist. This is not rocket science. It has been done before. It is possible. The focus for the New Democrats is to say that our artists have a right to be paid and a right to be protected. We are not going to go the route of the Liberals, which was to criminalize consumers, because young people share. Sometimes they share movies, whether it is right or wrong, and we could debate that all day.

Going after families and taking them to court for millions and millions of dollars, which we saw happening in the United States, is a wrong-headed move. In the States, it undermined the market and kids just walked away from it. How do we establish that balance? It is not by criminalizing consumers but by finding the monetary stream to protect our artists. (1125) [ Translation ] Ms. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet (Hochelaga, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to speak to Bill C-8,

An Act to amend the Copyright Act and the Trade-marks Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts . Today, I want to express my support for this bill. It is difficult to disagree with the principle. Clearly, combatting counterfeiting is important for Canadian businesses and consumers. I will certainly not speak out against virtue. However, I would like to express a few reservations that I have, particularly with regard to this government's true commitment to protecting copyright in Canada and the enforceability of the bill.

I hope that the government will listen to what I have to say and that my comments will help to improve the measures that will be taken if this bill is passed. I think that everyone here can agree that we have to crack down on counterfeiting, both because of the negative impact that counterfeit goods can have on our economy and the economies of our neighbours and because of the danger they can pose to Canadians' health. The clandestine nature of counterfeiting prevents us from being able to accurately determine the scope of the problem for our economy.

According to the RCMP, in 2011, 80% of counterfeit goods came from China, a 46% increase as compared to 2005. According to Industry Canada, counterfeiting has increased in recent years: The retail value of counterfeit goods seized by the RCMP increased from $7.6 million in 2005 to $38 million in 2012. Of course, that is only counting the goods that were seized. In 2009, in a report entitled “Magnitude of Counterfeiting and Piracy of Tangible Products: An Update”, the OECD estimated the value of counterfeit and pirated goods in international trade at $250 billion. These numbers speak for themselves.

There is an urgent need for effective measures to combat this growing phenomenon. The Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology recently conducted a study on intellectual property. Many businesses testified in support of taking action at the border to fight the increase in illegal counterfeit goods. In its 2013 report entitled “Intellectual Property Regime in Canada”, the committee made a number of recommendations regarding action to be taken at the border to prevent the import of counterfeit goods.

Similarly, in a dissenting opinion, the NDP members of the committee argued that the Canada Border Services Agency should be given sufficient funding to combat counterfeiting without compromising the other important responsibilities it has in protecting Canadians and defending our border.

Of course, because this was an NDP recommendation and would require an increase in government spending, even though this measure would protect the Canadian economy, the NDP was forced to submit it in a written dissenting opinion, because the Conservatives are too blinded by their ideology to see the benefits of such a measure for our industries. It makes no sense, but this is not the first time something like this has happened, and it probably will not be the last. This government is full of contradictions.

Only now has it come forward with Bill C-8 , a nice collection of good intentions, although for years now, our American neighbours have been calling on Canada to bring in tougher measures against counterfeit products. In its 2012 Special 301 Report, the Office of the U.S.

Trade Representative made a statement regarding the Americans' position. (1130) [ English ] It said, in part, that the United States “continues to urge Canada to strengthen its border enforcement efforts, including by providing customs officials with ex officio authority to take action against the importation, exportation, and transshipment of pirated or counterfeit goods.” [ Translation ] This bill adds two new criminal offences under the Copyright Act for the possession or export of infringing copies and creates a prohibition against importing or exporting infringing copies and counterfeit goods.

Those are great principles. This could help fight counterfeiting, thereby protecting copyright, and help prevent counterfeit goods from entering the Canadian market—which hurts our economy—or passing through our borders and entering the U.S. The problem is that this will take mare than just words. I actually have to wonder how this government can possibly claim to be serious about fighting counterfeit goods when in their 2012 budget, the Conservatives announced cuts totalling $143 million over three years to CBSA funding.

Some $31.3 million was cut in 2012-13 and $72.3 million in 2013-14, for a total of $143.4 million that will be cut from the CBSA budget by 2014-15. It is not hard to see that these very cuts will reduce the number of front-line officers and impair our ability to monitor our borders. What is more, this year's report on plans and priorities indicates a loss of 549 full-time equivalent jobs by 2015 at the Canada Border Services Agency. This will reduce the agency's ability to discharge its responsibilities. In other words, the government is speaking out of both sides of its mouth yet again.

On one hand it says it wants to fight fraud, which is a good thing, but on the other hand it makes cuts that will prevent our border services from doing their job. This bill gives even more responsibilities to CBSA just as the government keeps reducing the agency's ability to discharge them. Is that really what the government is proposing? I fail to see the logic in that.

Jean-Pierre Fortin, national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, commented on the 2012 budget cuts to the Canada Border Services Agency and how they would reduce border officers' ability to do their work: These proposed budget cuts would have a direct and real impact on Canadians and our communities across the country: more child pornography entering the country, more weapons and illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, sexual predators and hardened criminals. That is frightening.

In 2012, the union president was already saying that the agency would have a hard time protecting our territory. I wonder where the government thinks the necessary resources will come from for combatting the import of counterfeit goods, protecting Canadian industries, their transit from Canada to the United States, or for protecting Canadians from counterfeit products that might be dangerous for their health and safety, when it keeps cutting the agency's budget. To effectively combat the entry into Canada of counterfeit goods, we need a lot more than words and good intentions. We need the means.

The NDP supports the measures that would help Canadian businesses keep jobs and production here, instead of transferring them to countries that have stricter copyright protections. The NDP also wants to ensure that enough funds will be available so that laws like the one proposed in Bill C-8 can realistically be enforced, and so that the agencies responsible for enforcing them do not have to make choices that could compromise their other responsibilities, thus jeopardizing the safety of Canadians.

In this case, if the government is truly serious about wanting to crack down on counterfeit products coming into our country, it will have to give Canada Border Services the means to fulfill all of its responsibilities. The government will have to revise its decision to decrease the agency's budget and reverse the trend of reducing the number of front-line officers. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the New Democrats support the underlying principles of the bill and will vote in favour of the bill. We just want to ensure that this is not in vain.

(1135) Mr. Robert Aubin (Trois-Rivières, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Hochelaga for her very relevant and informed speech. What would she suggest we tell Canadians in the big cities, most of whom are well aware that a $20 Rolex is very likely not real and that a $25 Coco Chanel purse is a knock-off? The sale of counterfeit products tends to be trivialized, especially in Quebec, where all kinds of counterfeit products can be found at flea markets. How can we inform Canadians that this is a real problem? How do we explain this to the average Canadian watching us today? Ms.

Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet : Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for his question. We need to start by showing Canadians that, of course, counterfeit items may include handbags, but may also include things that harm not only people's health and safety, but also the Canadian economy. For example, some bicycles are manufactured in Canada. However, the manufacture of bicycles or furniture generally goes to China. Canada is losing industries because of counterfeiting.

I am not necessarily saying that counterfeit bicycles are arriving from China, but that this is an example of the Canadian industry losing to other countries. The same is happening with products counterfeited here since Canadian industries are being prevented from producing good products, which is also harming the reputation of good Canadian industries. If we want to keep good jobs in Canada, we need to explain to Canadians that buying counterfeit products means that they are harming the Canadian industry and economy. [ English ] Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr.

Speaker, I am pleased to be able to speak on Bill C-8, which is a bill that deals with quite sweeping changes to copyright infringement and intellectual property rights in Canada. I presented numerous amendments to the bill before committee, and I am sorry to say that, shockingly, my amendments did not carry. I am afraid that this has become the custom due to the passage of, astonishingly, identical motions in 20 different committees at the same time, intended to deprive me of my rights to present substantive amendments at report stage.

Since I have been going to many committees under this new edict, I have not had a single amendment carry at committee. However, I remain hopeful that one day the reasoned efforts I am making will meet with favour. In the case of Bill C-8 , as I mentioned, we would be making sweeping changes, perhaps the most sweeping changes in intellectual property rights law in Canada in over 70 years. We would make these changes without adequate hearings, study, or the proof of any need.

As a matter of fact, one prominent member of the Canadian bar, Howard Knopf, describes the effort to deal with counterfeiting and fake products with this headline: “Is Parliament Rushing to Respond to a Fake Crisis About Fake Products?” So, we have copyright infringement and we want to protect, and I completely agree with all members of the House who have spoken to our desire to protect artists, innovators, and creators from having the products of their intellectual efforts pirated and stolen without adequate response.

However, I will share with this House quite simply what we fear is happening here: we would create multiple offences for relatively minor matters, criminalize things that would normally be dealt with in civil efforts, and we would create new charges under the Criminal Code for offences for which we already have adequate measures within the Criminal Code to handle such infringements. I want to first begin with the question of invasion of privacy, which is found at clause 59 of Bill C-8 . The definition of “offence” under the Criminal Code

section dealing with wiretapping would be amended to include infringements found and created in Bill C-8 . It is important to note that this

section is not before us at the moment because when we are amending one legislation and creating Bill C-8 , we do not always go back and look at the legislation we are changing. However, I think it is important for all members in this place to look at the Criminal Code

section that Bill C-8 would amend. Bill C-8 , intended to deal with copyright and trademark, would amend

section 183 of the Criminal Code. If we look at

section 183, we find that the

definitions of “offence” deal with the following: first is high treason; second is intimidating Parliament or a legislature; third is sabotage; then is forgery, sedition, highjacking, endangering the safety of aircraft, offensive weapons, breach of duty, using explosives. This category of offences, I think all members of this House would agree—even those who do not have statutory

interpretation training—are offences of a high order and significant, dangerous activities in the Criminal Code for which we want to be able to have access to wiretap. However, we would now add offences under copyright and trademark infringement, as created by this proposed act. Now, that is a step too far for the Green Party. It means that, immediately upon passage of Bill C-8 , we would see the day that people who, for instance, in a number of fact settings that we certainly do not contemplate as dangerous, could have their phones wiretapped.

There is accidental downloading, as the hon. member for Timmins—James Bay mentioned, and most high school kids could break this proposed law any day of the week without planning to make a fortune for themselves or do anything other than download illegally from a website.

(1140) A noted lawyer in this area, Howard Knopf, was not a witness and was not allowed to speak before the committee. However, he mentioned that “The DNA and fingerprints of the movie and record industries are all over this bill”. Why else would we want to allow the RCMP and law enforcement agents to have the ability to wiretap the phones of people they suspect have downloaded illegally? Copyright infringement in this new scenario, the brave new world of Bill C-8, goes quite far into activities that one would not ordinarily consider dangerous at all, not even criminal, but they will be criminalized.

For instance, under some sections of the bill, it would not be hard to imagine that someone had infringed copyright under the bill by playing at a private function, such as a wedding, tunes that normally would be played by disc jockeys at various events. That could prompt a wiretap if they were so inclined. These changes are quite sweeping. I do not believe the Canadian public is aware of what Bill C-8 proposes to do or the complexities and confusion that would be created by the way this legislation is structured.

Under Bill C-8 , if criminal remedy is available for anyone who knowingly distributes copies of a work in which copyrights exist, that could capture a kid downloading or using files on BitTorrent. We do not want to encourage those activities, but on the other hand, the level of criminality and the ability to wiretap for those offences is certainly extreme. The trademark and copyright area is a difficult area. People who work in this area are concerned that the bill could also inadvertently capture parallel imports. Parallel imports are also referred to as grey products. They are in a murky area.

A parallel import is not actually infringement of copyright at all. It is not a counterfeit or a piracy measure. I will use an example from New Zealand that I found when I was looking for a commonplace example to explain what I mean by parallel imports. In New Zealand it is common for luxury car dealers to go to Malaysia, buy a Mercédes Benz, which is cheaper there, then import that vehicle legally into New Zealand and sell it at the price Mercédes Benz wants to sell that car for in the New Zealand market.

People who go to the trouble of getting the car in Malaysia have not broken any law and they make a fair bit of money on this. It is generally considered that parallel imports increase consumer choice, aid competition and keep prices low. The way the bill is structured, it could quite easily capture parallel imports inadvertently, not counterfeit nor pirate imports. Not only do we capture parallel imports, we could then have the ability to wiretap to find out what that group is doing. This legislation has a lot wrong with it.

The failure to make any effort to make it more precise is astonishing when one considers that these fundamental changes to our copyright law are being pushed through without adequate time to consider the implications. My colleague from Hamilton made an interesting point. How could a border guard be expected to have sufficient grasp of this complex area of international copyright law to distinguish between a parallel import and a counterfeit or pirated good? It is simply beyond the scope of even people who practise this area of law full-time to make such a determination on the spot at the border.

I will turn quickly to the recommendations that Howard Knopf would have made had he been allowed to speak at committee. I will quote from an

article he wrote. The first recommendation was: The numerous references apparently intended not to interfere with the free flow of parallel imports are inconsistent and present potentially serious drafting problems that require further study. The bill should propose appropriate declaratory language for both the Copyright Act and Trade-marks Act that makes is absolutely clear that, with the exception of the sui generis book importation scheme now found in s. 27.1 of the Copyright Act, neither of these acts shall in any restrict the importation, distribution or sale of any product...

The second recommendation was: It would be mistaken and harmful to criminalize routine copyright and trade-mark infringement activity and there is no need to add additional criminal sanctions, much less wiretap enablement provisions or any provisions that would authorize the warrantless search of travelers to determine whether they have infringing items in their baggage... The third recommendation was: The bill should contain no provisions that are not essential for the purpose of combatting counterfeit... I urge this place to accept that this legislation will require massive amendments very soon.

(1145) Hon. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the leader of the Green Party put on the table, but when I listened to her remarks, it concerned me that a very important witness was not invited to the committee. Could she inform the House why that was the case? I know committees have not worked well in recent years, but they are supposed to look at all the angles. It seems rather strange that consistently amendments from no one other than the government seem to be accepted. That is not how this place is supposed to work. Opposition members and other witnesses have good ideas, too.

It might even prevent the government from having their legislation tossed back by the Supreme Court. Could the member tell me the credentials of the witness and if she knows any reason why that person, with his expertise, was not invited to come to the committee to assist all Canadians in making better legislation? Ms. Elizabeth May : Mr. Speaker, Howard Knopf has over 30 years' experience in copyright infringement law. He attached a CV and sent it to the committee. In his letter to the committee he said the following: —if there is to be a bill - we need to get it right.

Here is my offer to appear sent to the Committee on November 11, 2013. It seems that that the Committee does not wish to hear me on this. He went on to say: I would like to offer to appear before your Committee in my own personal pro bono capacity as a witness in order to address certain issues of serious concern regarding Bill C-8.

While the overall purpose of the Bill is commendable, namely to reduce commercial counterfeiting and piracy, and the drafting shows very diligent work and great competence overall, the devil is in the details and there are 50 pages of highly technical details in this instance - some of which have profound policy implications. He closed with a PS, which, in light of the comments from the member for Malpeque , are troubling.

He wrote: PS--Interestingly, the Committee has heard both from Lorne Lipkus and his son David Lipkus, both of the same anti-counterfeiting law firm, in separate presentations that were presumably both very much in favour of this legislation, and presumably both advocating for it to go even further.... But, a Committee that is rushing to judgement and refusing to hear testimony that it might not like, while hearing separate testimony from a father and son in the same law firm with the same focus, is really rather unusual--even by Parliamentary Committee standards.

(1150) The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : Is the House ready for the question?

Some hon. members: Question.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin): The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

An hon. member: No.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin): All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

Some hon. members: Yea.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin): All those opposed will please say nay.

An hon. member: Nay.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin): In my opinion the yeas have it. I declare the motion carried. (Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

Rouge National Urban Park Act Bill C-40. Second reading The House resumed from June 19 consideration of the motion that Bill C-40,

an act respecting the Rouge National Urban Park , be read the second time and referred to a committee. The Acting Speaker (Mr. Barry Devolin) : When this matter was last before the House, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood had spoken for 10 minutes. Therefore, he has 10 minutes remaining, plus questions and comments. The hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood. Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood, Lib.) : Mr. Speaker, I suppose there is some possibility that since June 19 members do not remember what profound wisdom I shared with the chamber.

On the realistic possibility that they have not retained that profound wisdom over the course of the summer, let me do a quick review and then comment on the changes that have happened since that debate, which have a dramatic impact on the integrity of the bill. When I was initially expressing my thoughts, I was concerned about three things: the actual size of the park, the ecological integrity of the park, and the consistency of a park with agricultural leases. At that time, I was concerned about the ecological integrity of the park.

Members may or may not know that most parks make reference to a clause when a park is created, which states: The Minister shall, within five years after a park is established, prepare a management plan for the park containing a long-term ecological vision for the park [and set out] ecological integrity objectives and indicators.... That clause is noticeably missing from this park bill.

Rather, there is a downgraded standard of ecological integrity, which states: The Minister must, in the management of the Park, take into consideration the protection of its natural ecosystems and cultural landscapes and the maintenance of its native wildlife and of the health of those ecosystems. It is quite a significantly reduced commitment. As I said on June 19, taking into consideration that was not a plan, I then went on to sketch a scenario, which in a strange sort of way actually unfolded.

The scenario was that the minister would go to the Province of Ontario and say that the federal government would like the 1,000 acres or 2,000 acres or whatever the number might be and the minister from the Province of Ontario would say that the province wanted to know how it would produce the plan and manage the park. The response from the minister of the environment, who is the responsible minister, would then say, “trust me”, which does not cut it. As far as anyone else in the House knows, including the parliamentary secretary to the minister , we do not know how this park would be managed.

I then went on to say that if I were the Province of Ontario, the town of Markham or the city of Toronto, I would be asking this rather fundamental question. I would say that unless they had a plan, no plan, no transfer. I want to emphasize that I hope it does not get held up on that. I hope there is a plan. I hope the ecological and cultural integrity of the park will be protected, however, “trust me” is not exactly a great answer. I know the Speaker appreciates the profundity of my wisdom on these matters, but even I did not know that I would be prescient.

Members will note that since then, the Province of Ontario has withdrawn its 22 square kilometres because it wants a commitment to an ecological plan that is similar to or exceeds the commitment that currently exists for the park. The consequence of that is the government, for whatever reason, has not offered that commitment and is not presenting legislation which offers that commitment. Therefore, the Province of Ontario is in a bit of a dilemma because it wants to see this park succeed.

The town of Markham, the city of Toronto and I dare say that pretty well everyone in this chamber want this park to succeed, as do all of the people who they represent.

(1155) The Province of Ontario has reluctantly withdrawn its commitment to transfer the 22-odd square kilometres that are within its jurisdiction. At this point, we do not actually know what other transferors will do to fulfill the government's commitment to a 58-square-kilometre park. As we are speaking here on October 2, 2014, debating the bill, which we all support in one manner or another, we do not actually know what the park will be. In fact, we know much less than we knew back on June 19 when we were debating it.

At this point, this is a bit of a Swiss-cheese park, and I do not know what the Province of Ontario controls. I do know that it is significant. I would say it is pretty well one-third of the intended park. I do not know whether this turns it into a whole bunch of little pieces of land, which may or may not be joined together, through the entire 58 square kilometres. We may have a big chunk out of the middle of the park, or we may have a bunch of little chunks out of the park. Regardless, this does not seem to be an appropriate way to go about it.

I would have thought, and far be it from me to give advice to the government, that before tabling the plan, before tabling the bill, the government would have had the Province of Ontario, the City of Markham, and the City of Toronto, whichever would be transferring land, sign on to the commitment to ecological integrity, which was actually created in January 2013, when the federal government signed a memorandum of agreement with the Province of Ontario requiring that the Rouge Park policy meet or exceed existing provincial policy.

I would have thought that would have been locked down prior to the presentation of the bill, but it was not, and the Province of Ontario is not satisfied. The Province of Ontario will not transfer its land until it is satisfied, so we have a bit of a Swiss-cheese park proposal presently before the House. None of us actually knows what is in the proposal and the Government of Canada does not seem to be prepared to meet or exceed provincial policy. The consequence is that we are debating in the dark, because we do not know where we are going to have this plan. We do not know what will be in it.

We do not know what will not be in it. We do not know the basis of the government's refusal to meet or exceed the provincial standards, and the consequence of that is yet to be determined. I frankly thought, when I read of the Government of Ontario's intention to withdraw from its commitment, that the government would actually pull the bill until such time as all levels of government were satisfied with the commitment to ecological integrity in the bill. It is not as if this does not actually have some serious implications. This is an exciting possibility.

This is a one-in-a-lifetime possibility, and it is very important to get it right. Therefore, it is very important to have all levels of government on side and to deal with what are unique problems in the proposal. This park is crossed by Highway 401. It is crossed by Taunton Road. It is crossed by hydro lines. It is an urban park. Members might also know that the Rouge River is one of the more degraded watersheds in the general GTA.

Because it is one of the more degraded watersheds, it is extremely important that an ecological management plan be put in place before the Conservatives invite other levels of government to simply turn over their commitment and in the end lose all control over their pieces of land.

(1200) I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your time and attention. I cannot say that I would be overly insulted if you did not actually remember what I said in June this year. I hope that my remarks summarize what I see as the state of affairs and why this bill is quite problematic for many of us. Hon. Michelle Rempel (Minister of State (Western Economic Diversification), CPC) : Mr. Speaker, first, I agree with my colleague that ecological integrity is one of the key pillars of Parks Canada. I believe in that quite strongly. We see that with many of the parks our government has created across this country.

We have actually expanded park space quite significantly under the government. What I am curious about is the November 15, 2015 date that has been set. There would be no talk, and my colleague can correct me if I am wrong, under any circumstance, for the transfer of that land. One could suggest that it has been coincidentally set. I would hope that is the case. Would my colleague support an accelerated timeline for discussions around that should we be able to come to a consensus? Does he support that particular date for any specific reason?

Could the member also comment on the fact that the whole principle of developing a parks management plan is to consult with the community, different stakeholders, and different levels of government to agree to the principles by which ecological integrity will be maintained in this park, which is typically the process by which parks are maintained in this country? Hon. John McKay : Mr. Speaker, I do not know about a date. I believe that the member said November 2015. I do not know about that.

I would have thought that a lot of the heavy lifting with respect to the plan and the park would have been done prior to the presentation of the bill. I guess that is where the rubber is hitting the road. There are ongoing consultations with community stakeholders. I have been to one of them in my community. The consultation was literally across the creek from my own backyard. It was an interesting exercise. At the end of the two hours of consultation with my community, there may have been a lot more questions than there were answers.

If this is the state of consultation, it does, in fact, make me a little nervous.

(1205) Ms. Megan Leslie (Halifax, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I appreciated my colleague's speech, in particular when he was talking about ecological integrity. I am not an MP from Ontario, so I am interested in what he is hearing on the ground. He talked about the fact that the federal government is supposed to meet or exceed existing environmental legislation. That is part of the land transfer agreement. Now the Ontario government is saying, as we heard, that it may not transfer the land. It is a complicated thing to be debating in the House when we do not actually know what this park will look like.

We are debating a bill about a park, and we do not know what the final result of the park will be. I am wondering if the member can expand a little on this point and what he is hearing in his community and if he has any particular insight as to how we can even do this if we do not know if the lands will be transferred. Hon. John McKay : Mr. Speaker, the hon. member has hit the nail on the head. The presentation of this bill was entirely premature, given the recent factual circumstances, the facts on the ground, as folks like to describe it.

I know there are a number of people who have been Rouge Park warriors for 20 to 25 years. They are deeply committed to and involved in the management of the park and have been over the last few years. There is a sense, rightly, wrongly, fairly, et cetera, that they are marginalized. It is not an optimum way to treat citizens who have dealt with it. Frankly, the Province of Ontario has picked up on the disquiet in the community, because this is a complicated park, no matter how one slices the baloney.

It is going to be a very complicated park, even with the best of intentions, and even with a lot of the stakeholders on the side of the angels. Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP) : Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood , for his presentation on the Rouge Park, as proposed to us. I had a lot of involvement with the Rouge when I worked in the office of the Hon. Tom McMillan, when he was minister of the environment, and with the wonderful Pauline Browes, who continues to play an important role in this. She was minister of parks in the Mulroney administration.

I want to see the Rouge created as a national park, but I want it to be done right. I have also, therefore, worked with a group known as Friends of the Rouge Watershed for a very long time and share their concern that the current management plan and current plans for the park do not protect it adequately. I want to ask my hon. colleague, the member for Scarborough—Guildwood a question. Yes, it is a park in an urban area, which makes it unique, but how much do we have to compromise on the fundamental principles of ecological integrity within the national park scheme in order to create an urban park?

Should we not push for the very best ecologically protected zone we possibly can? This will be an achievement for the world. Hon. John McKay : Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to acknowledge the work of the Hon. Pauline Browes. Members might be interested to know that at one point, she ran against me, so I have some familiarity with Ms. Browes. Anyway, I am here, and she is not. The member for Whitchurch-Stouffville had the same experience, I believe, as well, but he is here. I also want to acknowledge the work of Derek Lee, who was the member for Scarborough--Rouge River for many years.

I think those are the two legislative heroes. The hon. member asked a really interesting question: how much is the compromise going to be? There is going to be compromise. We are not talking about pristine wilderness. We are not talking about Nahanni, which is what we will be talking about in the next park bill. We are talking about a significantly degraded watershed.

We are talking about an area in the eastern GTA that is heavily populated, and we are talking about a lot of complications, particularly, for instance, with the leaseholders and how to integrate the leaseholders into the management of the farm yet meet the highest possible ecological standards, under the circumstances. This is going to be difficult at the best of times, and it has been made even more difficult by these current circumstances. (1210) [ Translation ] Mr. François Choquette (Drummond, NDP) : Mr. Speaker, I will be brief, given that I am short on time.

What concerns me is the dangerous precedent that the Conservatives could set by creating this park. Since it will be the first urban national park, it is essential that ecological integrity be the priority. My Conservative colleague just said that ecological integrity is important to her. Therefore, she should push her Conservative colleagues to make sure that this priority is in the bill, because it is not. Does my colleague not believe that a dangerous precedent could be set by creating this park without making ecological integrity a priority? [ English ] Hon. John McKay : Mr.

Speaker, I agree and I disagree, simultaneously, with my colleague. I think it is a dangerous precedent. The creation of urban parks is difficult, and each one is unique to its own circumstances. However, I think this is the one where we make the mould, and if the mould is not one that has ecological integrity, or, in the words of some, has a net gain in ecosystem and watershed health as our standard, then we will achieve nothing. At this point, there is not one. That will result in some rather regrettable consequences. Hon. Michael Chong (Wellington—Halton Hills, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I will make a quick comment.

I think the legislation in front of us should be supported by the members of the House, because it would, in fact, exceed provincial standards when it comes to ecological protection in our parks. Provincial parks, such as Algonquin and Killarney, allow logging, mining, fishing, and hunting. The current legislation in front of us does not allow that. It will not allow for resource extraction, logging, the removal of native flora and fauna, hunting or fishing, or the removal of fossils.

I just make that comment because I think it is important to acknowledge that the legislation would exceed Ontario provincial legislation with respect to parks like Algonquin and Killarney, which are considered crown jewels in the Ontario parks system. Hon. John McKay : Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for his work on this park. I imagine that if the hon. member were running this file, we could actually do some business. However, “trust me” does not cut it. The responses from the federal government and the Government of Ontario have been unhelpful.

This is a complicated park and, of course, there are other forms of commercial activity in other parks. That is the reality. Unfortunately, the way that the legislation is phrased makes it open season. That is regrettable. Frankly, “trust me” does not cut it. Mr. Paul Calandra (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and for Intergovernmental Affairs, CPC) : Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by noting that today is the first day of the Markham Fair, which runs from October 2 to October 5. This is one of Ontario's largest agricultural fairs. It has been going on since 1844 in my community.

It highlights the important role that farming and agriculture have played in the development of my community and the entire York region. What is very special about the Markham Fair every year is the importance that the entire community places on it. Every November, I have the opportunity to attend the president's banquet at the Markham Fair, and we recognize the individuals who have volunteered their time at the fair. It always amazes me how many people have been there for 5, 10, 20, 25, 40, 45 and 50 years, volunteering at the Markham Fair.

Generation upon generation of families volunteer to make this annual fair a special event for our entire community. As I said, it is an agricultural fair. We see all the things that we could expect to see at an agricultural fair. There are ploughing matches There are competitions for things like hogs, chickens, the best homemade apple pie. There is soap carving. Obviously, there is a midway and there are all kinds of other things that highlight the importance of agriculture to our community. Today, as they kick off another year of the Markham Fair, I just wanted to congratulate them and wish them well.

There has been a lot of difference of opinion on the creation of the park. Actually, let me take that back. I do not think that there is a difference of opinion with respect to creating the Rouge national urban park. I think that the difference is in the form that the park would take. As the members for Scarborough—Guildwood and Wellington—Halton Hills highlighted, a lot of people for many years have been focused on trying to create a national park in the Rouge. That is something that has been talked about for many years.

It is important to look back a little bit at where this all started and how we got to this place. A lot of the land in this area became available to the government through the expropriations in 1972 by the Trudeau government of, I think, over 18,000 acres of land for the creation of potential new airports and a second airport for Toronto. At that time, farmers in the area were evicted from their lands. Some were given leases to lease back their lands on a yearly basis, but many were evicted. That has been the reality for many of the farmers in the area since 1972.

Fast forward to 1994, when the Rouge park concept started being put into play. As it has already been noted, it really followed Pauline Browes, who was the minister of state for the environment in the Campbell government and a parliamentary secretary in the Mulroney government. A decision was made that $10 million would be set aside to help create, manage and preserve some of the natural heritage of the Rouge park. That brought in a heightened significance of how special the natural heritage of the Rouge is. Consequently, there have been provincial governments that have also recognized its significance.

Through the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Mike Harris government transferred thousands of acres of land into the management of the park. Also through that time, plans were made to manage the Rouge in a more effective way so that we could preserve and protect the national heritage of the area. As we have got a little bit further into the discussion, there were thoughts about what could be done to protect the Rouge park. As it has been mentioned, the Rouge park falls into two different categories. There is a Toronto category, and then there is a York region part of it.

(1215) For those who do not know the area, in the Toronto category there is a large street called Steeles Avenue. South of Steeles Avenue, some of the most extraordinary natural heritage in Ontario or Canada can be evidenced through the Rouge park there. It is absolutely spectacular. I do not think anybody can question that. North of Steeles Avenue, we start coming into more agricultural areas. A vast majority of the land to the north of Highway 7, which would be put into Rouge park, is agricultural land that has been farmed for hundreds of years. This is not just a new concept.

This land has been farmed for hundreds of years. In fact, I would invite all of my colleagues in the House to look at a program called The Curse of the Axe . This program highlights the Wendat people who were settled in this area some 500 years ago. It was discovered that the Wendat people had been farming those very same lands. The extent to which they were farming completely changed how we viewed our first nations and the role that they played in agriculture and trading in the area. I would invite all my colleagues to look at the program. It will highlight again how long this land has been farmed.

North of Highway 7, it is farming. To the south, as the member for Scarborough—Guildwood rightly pointed out, we have the 401, a hydro corridor, the Toronto Zoo and, on one edge of it, there is a landfill. However, there are extraordinary pockets of incredible beauty that the Ontario government, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and what was previously the Rouge Park Alliance had been working on preserving for a number of years. We have done that with partners in the private sector. By and large, we have done a very good job.

However, when the concept started evolving with respect to a national urban park, and we knew we had some excess airport lands, that is when the debate started to change a bit. We knew, as has been mentioned by other speakers, that we could do something very special here. We could protect the natural heritage of the Rouge Valley, but at the same time we could extract those lands that had become surplus to any potential airport needs, and put them back into a Rouge park so these lands could be protected for a long time to come.

The Ontario Farmland Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes farmland preservation, said, “The new Rouge National Urban Park offers one of the most innovative opportunities for the protection of farmland resources, agricultural heritage and local food production in our generation.” If I am not mistaken, it is only 1%. This is class 1 farmland. We have lost so much farmland in this area to development. In the park south of Steeles Avenue, pretty much all of the farming that was there is now gone.

I believe that we have to do our absolute best to ensure that the class 1 farmland on the northern part of the future park is preserved and saved, and that we allow our farmers to continue to farm, using best farm practices, for a very long time. Our farmers are sometimes condemned as not being proper stewards of the land. I disagree. These lands have been farmed for hundreds of years, and our farmers are some of the best stewards of the land. The proposal that has been brought forward by the minister would see these farmers finally get long-term leases.

Bear in mind that these farmers have been working on yearly leases. It is very hard, if not impossible, for them to make investments in the land that they have been farming. They cannot make the investments that most farmers would want to make. They are forced into a certain type of farming because they are on a yearly lease. This has disadvantaged the farmers in this area for a very long time.

(1220) We have the opportunity through this legislation to do both things that are very important, to protect the natural heritage of the park, while at the same time reversing decades of poor treatment of farmers in the area. That is why I am very excited about this. Obviously throughout this process there has been a lot of debate. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills and I have not always seen eye to eye on this. We have had a tremendous amount of debate.

When the proposal first came to me as the member of Parliament for Oak Ridges—Markham to create a Rouge national urban park, I was dead set against it if it meant that farmers in my riding would be disadvantaged the way they had been and if they were to be treated the way they had been under the existing Rouge Park management. There is a 2001 Rouge Park management plan. Part of that management plan calls for a 600-metre corridor. The net result of that corridor would mean the elimination, at a minimum, of 1,700 acres of class 1 farmland and that is completely unacceptable to me, to farmers and to my constituents.

We can make sure that we work with the farmers, who are not opposed to making sure that the entire ecosystem is protected. They want to work together with government to make sure that they can do that. I want to read a letter from the York Region Federation of Agriculture, which represents farmers in the area, to the hon. Brad Duguid, the Ontario minister who has highlighted that the Ontario government does not want to transfer the land.

It says: The York Region Federation of Agriculture members are the 700 farm businesses in York Region and Toronto including the farmers in the Rouge National Urban Park. ...you arrived at your decision to not recommend the Provincial land transfers after discussions with stakeholders and local citizen groups. You did not consult with the York Region Federation of Agriculture, the farmers in the Park, or the community living in the Park. We urge you not to hold up the transfer of Provincial lands to Parks Canada.

The farming community in the Rouge National Urban Park are the same farm families that have been farming and caring for the land...for the past 200 years. The future of the farms in the Rouge National Urban Park have been in limbo since the farms were expropriated in the 1970's. The farmland in the Rouge National Urban Park is Class 1 Agricultural Land, meaning it is the best land for agriculture production. Less than 1% of Canada's farmland is Class 1. The farmers in the park have already given up 1000 acres of productive farmland in the Rouge N